Unspoken
by SwitchbladesInMyHeart
Summary: "I know you would've hated me being here," she eventually says, letting the words roll past her chapped lips and into the frosty silence. "But I couldn't stay away." Cherry reflects on the many things she never said to the one who needed to hear them the most. One-shot.


**Hey guys! So, for anyone reading my story "Silver Linings", I promise the fourth chapter will be up soon! My area will probably be getting some snow and ice soon, so fingers crossed for a snow day! This one-shot isn't long and it's fairly messy, but I'm mildly proud of it. It's my first time writing something like this, so feedback is _greatly _appreciated. This idea has been bugging me, since I'm an _avid _Cherry and Dally shipper, and I decided to finish it when I was supposed to be doing geometry homework ;) Again, I'd love to know what you think!**

**2/3/14- I stumbled upon a song almost immediately after I published this that seemed to fit the story even better. "Why" by Rascal Flatts, the original song, is absolutely gorgeous (be warned, it's a tearjerker), but this one was more what I was looking for in this particular instance.**

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_"I'm kicking the curb 'cause you never heard  
The words that you needed so bad  
And I'm kicking the dirt 'cause I never gave you  
The things that you needed to have"  
_~Maroon 5, "Sad"

The world is cold and silent as she slips stealthily out of her house and into the clear night. The wind whips her tangled locks of hair about wildly, and her skin grows chilled. She could have worn one of the expensive, silken coats that her mother bought for her, but she prefers the comfort of the old, tattered jacket she has owned for years. It carries with it a sense of relief, somehow. Perhaps it is because it has remained the same, when she and everything around her have changed so drastically.

Her destination is not far away, nestled between the end of her territory and the beginning of theirs. But the walk is still long enough to induce the inner argument that she faces every week. _Who_?

If she had driven, rather than walked, she would've had to focus on the road and wouldn't have had time to grow so conflicted. And still, every week on this very night, she leaves her house by foot, telling herself that the headlights would alert her parents. Deep within herself, though, she knows that the real reason has nothing to do with surreptitiousness. She enjoys the uncertainty.

Perhaps it is masochistic of her to put herself through such an emotionally trying experience so often. Perhaps it is just plain _wrong _to even consider visiting the resting place of another instead of that of her late lover. She had yet to think of a plausible reason as to why she should choose to sit beside the other's grave, whispering thoughts too late to be of use to either of them, and so, every week, it is Bob's name that she traces with her icy fingers until the first traces of sunrise begin to stain the sky. It was Bob whom she had loved, she tells herself, and it is Bob whom she misses. It is misery and guilt over Bob's death that drives her out into the cold of the night.

Tonight, though, as she passes beneath the metallic archway announcing her arrival at the cemetery, she makes a decision that surprises herself. Rather than follow the familiar path towards a delicate, marble marker decorated with expensive flowers, she veers to the left and heads instead for a crudely constructed slab of stone, barren save for a small bundle of wilting forget-me-nots.

Dropping to her knees on the frost-hardened ground, she delicately brushes away the dirt gathering in the letters of his name. She is silent for several minutes, wrapping her jacket tightly around herself as she wonders hopelessly what she could say in regards to the blue-eyed boy six feet beneath her. _Is there anything left to say? _she asks in her head. Even as the question forms in her mind, she knows there are a million and one things to be said, none of them easy and all of them too late.

"I know you would've hated me being here," she eventually says, letting the words roll past her chapped lips and into the frosty silence. "But I couldn't stay away." The sharp meaning of the words pains her, but she pretends not to feel the ache in her chest because she doesn't want it to be there and she doesn't want to acknowledge what it means.

"I just wish you could've seen that there was still good in the world," she whispers, her mind overwhelmed by thoughts of him and his cold, cold eyes, so filled with hatred for everything around him. The only time she had ever seen the hostility in his expression diminish was when he had looked at Johnny, and for a fraction of a second she feels jealous that looking at her had never softened his gaze. But then she feels guilty, because Johnny was gone, too. Gone too soon.

"It's not all Socs and Greasers," she continues, still grappling for the right words. "The world is full of beautiful things, if you look in the right places. Sunsets, and flowers, and people in love. I could've loved you, if you'd given me a chance." Even as she speaks the words aloud, she knows they are not quite true. He _had _given her a chance, or at least tried to. He had offered to take her out, and she had spurned his advances and told him to go to hell. She had selfishly pushed him away, terrified of falling for yet another boy destined for disaster. She had done the same thing he had done for so, so long.

"Maybe, if we'd gotten closer, had more time, I could've saved you." Voicing her guilt does not relieve her of it, as so many adults have told her it does.

_Just say what you're feeling, _they say. _Just let it all out. It'll make you feel better. _It does not make her feel better. If anything, expressing her feelings makes them sharper, more real. Perhaps it is a good thing, though. If you don't feel, you don't love, and if you don't love, you end up like Dallas Winston.

"Maybe, if you'd had someone else to turn to, you wouldn't have thought death was the only way out of the pain you were feeling," she sighs, feeling like the philosophical old therapist her parents had forced her to meet with after Bob's death. "Maybe we could've worked through it together. Maybe I could've made a difference." Suddenly, anger overtakes her, and she finds herself violently tearing the petals off of the dying flowers beneath his stone.

"Do you have any idea how selfish you are, Dallas Winston?" she spits vehemently into the darkness. "You didn't want to face life without Johnny, so you went and got yourself killed. Did you ever consider that maybe, just maybe, you would be leaving people behind? It was hard enough for Ponyboy and the rest of them to deal with losing Johnny, and then you went and got yourself killed off that same night." She takes a deep, steadying breath before forcing the last of her emotions into the air, knowing that the only way to escape them would be to admit them.

"You left me behind, too, you know," she murmurs, her voice barely audible. "I cried for you. I thought that there had to be some mistake, because you could take anything, but then I realized that all it took was one blow to destroy you completely." She feels herself shudder, numb with cold and sick with pain.

"There will always be a part of me that loves you," she breathes, trusting the breeze to carry her voice to wherever Dallas is. "I just wish there had been a part of you that loved me back."

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**So, what'd you think? Like it, love it, or utterly despise my guts for writing it? :P Reviews would be lovely!**

**Stay gold.**


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